Martin McDonagh is the mastermind behind the stellar hit from 2008, ‘In Bruges‘, as both writer and director, he created a hilarious, witty film that I just adored. I’m thrilled to discover hes the same force bringing ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri‘ to life, with start of production set for April.

A buddy cop drama series starring Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson is in the works currently for a cable channel. The project is title ‘True Detective’ and will consist of eight episodes. Nic Pizzolatto will write the series with Cary Fukunaga (Jane Eyre) directing the entire series.

Woody Harrelson has always had an in-demand acting career, but it seems that he was never so popular as he is now. Everywhere you look, things are turning up Woody. Harrelson joins the cast of ‘Triple Nine‘, a heist-thriller directed by John Hillcoat. Hillcoat brought us some massive hits like ‘The Road‘ and 2012’s massive hit ‘Lawless‘.

Venom is the latest example of a movie trying to be too many things. I don’t know if we need to blame the writers, director, or studio tinkering but somehow this movie attempts to be everything to everyone and fails miserably. That isn’t to say its a bad time at the movies, I actually truly enjoyed some aspects of Venom. I think if the movie focused on trying to do one thing instead of a million it may have been one of the best comic book movies in years. Instead, as a whole, it should be launched into space.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL HAVE SPOILERS

Disney is on a roll these days with their recent ‘Star Wars‘ franchise. Not only do we have the new Episodes, but we are getting spin-off movies that focus on a singular story from the past or a certain character. One character that we all have loved from the original trilogy, but don’t know a great deal about is Han Solo. Sure, we know he was a smuggler, is an anti-hero, loved the princess, and helped save the Galaxy with his wookie partner Chewbacca, as they flew from planet to planet on the iconic Millennium Falcon. Through the original trilogy, we heard small lines of dialogue that gave us the tiniest glimpse at his background and life before he met Obi-Wan and Luke. Fortunately, we now have ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story‘ to answer all of those questions for us.

I know these “Best of 2017” lists should technically be published in 2017, but why would I start 2018 any differently than I lived the majority of my adult life: Procrastinating and underachieving. What can I say? That’s my wheelhouse.

For a year that put a spotlight on some of the shittiest behavior by some of the Hollywood elite, it was actually a good year for TV and movies. I didn’t limit myself in number because as I moved on with the brackets, I felt like I was making ‘Sophie’s Choice‘ on some of these, so they’re all getting in! I’m feeling my inner-Oprah here, You’ve made the list! You made the list! EVERYBODY made the list!! In order to spare myself any arguments, I’m stating up front that my picks for the “Best of 2017” are not edited in regards to scandal or hideous human behavior.

Was 2017 a great year for movies? Of course it was. There were some excellent films to be released in 2017. There were also some bad ones for sure, but the focus on this article are some of the Best films that stuck with me long after viewing. Most people will give you their Top 10 list, but this is no Top 10, because there are just so many movies that I loved and feel passionate about, that I find it difficult and unpleasing to rank them.

Instead, these are my favorite movies of 2017, which I hope you’ve seen already. If you haven’t yet, you’re in for a real treat and I can’t wait for you to see them. Some of these films are still in theaters, while some are on Netflix, 4K UHD, and Blu-ray, so you’ll be able to quickly see any of these if you haven’t. I watched over 270 movies that were released in 2017 and these are my absolute favorites. I hope you get to see all of these, because I know you’ll love them. In no particular order…..

THE FILM

You probably have heard the name Jeannette Walls. She is a journalist that was known for her Gossip column for MSNBC, but she is now known world-wide for her amazing novel ‘The Glass Castle‘, which was a memoir about her life growing up with her dysfunctional family. Her novel stayed on the Best Seller list for 261 weeks. If you think about that’s about four years and yes, it’s that good. Of course, Hollywood made a movie about it, which was directed by the amazing Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) and starred Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts.

War For the Planet of the Apes is the best movie I have seen this summer. It is astonishingly well done. Every aspect of this movie *at a minimum* worked. Some of the basic moments and scenes would be considered high points for lesser franchises. There is a ton to spoil in this film but I will not be doing that in this review. Hopefully in a few weeks once people have seen the movie we can discuss the moments that made this movie so damn good in greater detail.

I believe we all thought that Tim Burton killed the Planet of the Apes franchise back in 2001 with his horrible version of man vs. ape. Luckily in 2011, the studio breathed new life into the franchise with Rupert Wyatt’s early telling of what is to become with Planet of the Apes with astonishing visual effects, acting, and one hell of a story. That film – Rise of the Planet of the Apes showed that one ape named Caesar (Andy Serkis) was to become the first highly intelligent and humanized ape, but it came at a great cost with a virus that wiped out most of Earth’s population. In the sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that was taken over by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), Caesar and his ape friend are battling for their lives against the humans that have survived the virus outbreak. Now we have arrived at the conclusion of this epic trilogy – War For The Planet of the Apes, with Reeves in the director’s chair again as we see an aging and grayish haired Caesar tending to his family and still battling the demons of his former human-hating friend Koba, whom was killed in the previous film.